Confiar Conjugation in Spanish
Introduction
confiar means "to trust" in English, and it is one of the verbs you will meet constantly in everyday Spanish — for trusting someone, or confiding in them. Learning it properly means more than memorising one form: the verb changes across thirteen tenses, and this page gives you every one of them, with the exact forms from the VerbFlow engine, so you can check any person or tense in seconds. Confiar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. That matters because the patterns on this page are the patterns you will reuse every time you speak or write. Work through the tables first, then read the notes under each tense — they explain when to use each tense and what to watch out for with this verb in particular. A natural example is: Cada día, yo confío en mi mejor amiga. — "Every day, I trust my best friend." Once you can say that sentence confidently, try changing the person and the tense using the tables below.
Quick facts
| Infinitive | confiar |
| Translation | to trust |
| Verb type | Regular -ar verb |
| Gerund | confiando |
| Past participle | confiado |
| Auxiliary | haber (all compound tenses) |
| Irregular tenses | regular in every tense |
Full conjugation of confiar
Present indicative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | confío |
| tú | confías |
| él / ella / Ud. | confía |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiáis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confían |
Preterite
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | confié |
| tú | confiaste |
| él / ella / Ud. | confió |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiasteis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confiaron |
Imperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | confiaba |
| tú | confiabas |
| él / ella / Ud. | confiaba |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiábamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiabais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confiaban |
Future
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | confiaré |
| tú | confiarás |
| él / ella / Ud. | confiará |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiaremos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiaréis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confiarán |
Conditional
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | confiaría |
| tú | confiarías |
| él / ella / Ud. | confiaría |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiaríamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiaríais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confiarían |
Present subjunctive
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | confíe |
| tú | confíes |
| él / ella / Ud. | confíe |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiéis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confíen |
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | confiara |
| tú | confiaras |
| él / ella / Ud. | confiara |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiáramos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiarais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confiaran |
Present perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | he confiado |
| tú | has confiado |
| él / ella / Ud. | ha confiado |
| nosotros / nosotras | hemos confiado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habéis confiado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | han confiado |
Pluperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | había confiado |
| tú | habías confiado |
| él / ella / Ud. | había confiado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habíamos confiado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habíais confiado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habían confiado |
Future perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habré confiado |
| tú | habrás confiado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habrá confiado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habremos confiado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habréis confiado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrán confiado |
Conditional perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habría confiado |
| tú | habrías confiado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habría confiado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habríamos confiado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habríais confiado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrían confiado |
Imperative — affirmative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | confía |
| él / ella / Ud. | confíe |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiad |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confíen |
Imperative — negative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | confíes |
| él / ella / Ud. | confíe |
| nosotros / nosotras | confiemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | confiéis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | confíen |
Gerund: confiando · Past participle: confiado
Confiar in every tense — notes and examples
Present indicative
The present is the tense for habits, facts and what is happening now. It is the first tense to master, because the present subjunctive and the affirmative imperative are both built from the present yo form. Example: Cada día, yo confío en mi mejor amiga. — "Every day, I trust my best friend."
Preterite
The preterite is for completed actions in the past — things that started and finished at a definite moment. Use it for a single event, a sequence of events, or an action with a clear end. Example: Ayer, yo confié en mi mejor amiga. — "Yesterday, I trusted my best friend."
Imperfect
The imperfect is for the past without a definite end: habits, background scenes, descriptions and actions in progress when something else happened. It never states when the action finished. Example: Antes, yo confiaba en mi mejor amiga. — "Before, I trusted my best friend."
Future
The future is for what will happen, and also for guesses about the present ("I wonder if…"). For regular verbs it is the infinitive plus the endings -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -éis, -án. Example: Mañana, yo confiaré en mi mejor amiga. — "Tomorrow, I will trust my best friend."
Conditional
The conditional is for what would happen — polite requests, hypothetical results and reported expectations. It shares its stem with the future, so any irregular future stem appears here too. Example: Yo confiaría en mi mejor amiga si tuviera la oportunidad. — "I would trust my best friend if I had the chance."
Present subjunctive
The present subjunctive is for wishes, doubts, emotions and other non-facts after que, and after expressions such as ojalá, es importante que or no creo que. It is not a tense for stating facts. Example: Espero que ella confíe en mi mejor amiga. — "I hope she will trust my best friend."
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
The imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms) is for wishes and doubts about the past, and for the if-part of hypothetical sentences (si + imperfect subjunctive, conditional). This page shows the -ra forms from the engine. Example: Si ella confiara en mi mejor amiga, todo cambiaría. — "If she trusted my best friend, everything would change."
Present perfect
The present perfect (haber + past participle) is for past actions connected to the present — recent events, experience, or something that has just happened. The auxiliary is always haber. Example: Yo he confiado en su palabra varias veces. — "I have trusted his word several times."
Pluperfect
The pluperfect (había + past participle) is the past of the past: something that had already happened before another past event. Example: Yo había confiado en mi mejor amiga antes de la reunión. — "I had trusted my best friend before the meeting."
Future perfect
The future perfect (habré + past participle) is for something that will already be finished by a future moment, or for a guess about the past. It is less common in speech than the simple future. Example: Para mañana, yo habré confiado en mi mejor amiga. — "By tomorrow, I will have trusted my best friend."
Conditional perfect
The conditional perfect (habría + past participle) is for what would have happened — the past of the conditional, used for regrets and unreal past conditions. Example: Yo habría confiado en mi mejor amiga si hubiera tenido tiempo. — "I would have trusted my best friend if I had had time."
Imperative — affirmative
The affirmative imperative is for direct orders, instructions and invitations. The tú form comes from the present él/ella form, and the formal, nosotros and plural forms come from the present subjunctive. Example: ¡confía en mi mejor amiga! — "Trust my best friend!"
Imperative — negative
The negative imperative (no + subjunctive) is for telling someone not to do something. All five persons come from the present subjunctive, which is why they look different from the affirmative tú form. Example: No confíes en mi mejor amiga. — "Do not trust my best friend."
Example sentences with confiar
Yo confío en mi mejor amiga. — "I trust my best friend."
¿Tú confías en su palabra? — "Do you trust his word?"
Ayer, él confió en mi mejor amiga. — "Yesterday, he trusted my best friend."
Nosotros confiamos en su palabra a tiempo. — "We trusted his word on time."
Antes, ellos confiaban en mi mejor amiga. — "Before, they trusted my best friend."
Mañana, yo confiaré en su palabra. — "Tomorrow, I will trust his word."
Nosotros confiaríamos en mi mejor amiga si pudiéramos. — "We would trust my best friend if we could."
Yo he confiado en su palabra varias veces. — "I have trusted his word several times."
Espero que ella confíe en mi mejor amiga. — "I hope she will trust my best friend."
Ahora mismo, yo estoy confiando en su palabra. — "Right now, I am trusting his word."
Common mistakes with confiar
1. Dropping the accent on the preterite yo form
The preterite yo form is confié — with the accent. Without it the word is misspelled, and in some verbs the accent is the only thing separating one tense from another.
2. Confusing confiar with creer (to believe)
confiar means "to trust", while creer means "to believe". They overlap in English but they are not interchangeable in Spanish: use confiar when you mean trusting someone, or confiding in them, and creer for its own meaning. Check the conjugation of creer before choosing.
3. Mixing up the preterite and the imperfect
Ayer yo confié en mi mejor amiga (preterite: one finished event yesterday) is not the same as antes yo confiaba en mi mejor amiga (imperfect: what used to happen). If you can add "yesterday" or "last week", you usually want the preterite; if you can add "used to", you want the imperfect.
4. Using estar instead of haber in the perfect tenses
The present perfect is he confiado (haber + participle), never estoy confiado. Haber is the only auxiliary for compound tenses in Spanish.
5. Dropping the preposition before the complement
confiar takes en here: yo confío en mi mejor amiga. Dropping the preposition (yo confío mi mejor amiga) sounds wrong to a native speaker, so learn the verb together with its preposition.
Quiz: confiar
1. Yo ___ en mi mejor amiga.
a. confía b. confío c. confían
2. Ella ___ en mi mejor amiga.
a. confío b. confía c. confían
3. Ayer, yo ___ en mi mejor amiga.
a. confío b. confié c. confía
4. Ellos ___ en mi mejor amiga ayer.
a. confío b. confiaron c. confía
5. Antes, yo ___ en mi mejor amiga.
a. confío b. confiaba c. confía
6. Mañana, yo ___ en mi mejor amiga.
a. confío b. confiaré c. confía
7. Yo ___ en mi mejor amiga si pudiera.
a. confío b. confiaría c. confía
8. Espero que ella ___ en mi mejor amiga.
a. confío b. confíe c. confía
9. Ahora mismo, yo estoy ___ en su palabra.
a. confiado b. confiando c. confío
10. Yo he ___ en su palabra varias veces.
a. confiando b. confiado c. confío
Answer key
confío — present tense, yo form.
confía — present tense, él/ella form.
confié — preterite, yo form — a finished action yesterday.
confiaron — preterite, ellos/ellas form.
confiaba — imperfect, yo form — a past habit.
confiaré — future, yo form.
confiaría — conditional, yo form — a hypothetical.
confíe — present subjunctive after 'espero que'.
confiando — gerund — the progressive is estar + gerund.
confiado — past participle — the present perfect is haber + participle.
Frequently asked questions about confiar
What does confiar mean in English?
Confiar means "to trust". It is used for trusting someone, or confiding in them. A simple example is yo confío en mi mejor amiga — "I trust my best friend."
Is confiar regular or irregular?
Confiar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. The forms that most often catch learners out are the present yo form confío, the preterite yo form confié and the past participle confiado — learn those three first, then fill in the rest from the tables above.
What is the gerund and the past participle of confiar?
The gerund is confiando (used for the progressive: estoy confiando) and the past participle is confiado (used with haber in all perfect tenses: he confiado). Both forms are used constantly, so they are worth memorising on their own.
How do I say "I trust" in the past?
It depends on the meaning. For one finished action use the preterite: ayer yo confié en mi mejor amiga — "yesterday I trusted my best friend". For a past habit or background use the imperfect: antes yo confiaba en mi mejor amiga — "before, I trusted my best friend". The mistake most learners make is using one for the other.
Does confiar take the subjunctive?
Not usually. Confiar on its own takes the indicative — yo confío en mi mejor amiga. You will meet the subjunctive with confiar only inside a larger construction that itself triggers it, such as no creo que or es importante que, and then the subjunctive form is confíe.